Foodlaw-Reading

Food Law News - UK - 2015

ENFORCEMENT - FSA focused audit programme on the assessment of local authority (LA) delivery of official controls in milk and dairy products establishments in England, Wales and Scotland 2014/2015

Action requested: LAs are asked to take into account the findings and recommendations in the final report from the FSA’s local delivery audit team and the proposed actions in this letter when carrying out interventions at milk and dairy establishments.

Issue

Between October 2014 and February 2015 the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in England, Wales and Scotland carried out a focused audit programme to provide an overall picture of LA delivery of official controls in approved dairy establishments. The programme was developed in response to recommendations made by the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) during an audit of control systems related to safety of milk and dairy products in the UK in 2013 [See FVO Report]. This letter provides advice on targeted action to be considered during interventions at milk and dairy establishments, to address the audit recommendations.

There are also recommendations which will have relevance in other approved establishments, so LAs should consider the findings and recommendations of

1 http://ec.europa.eu/food/fvo/audit_reports/details.cfm?rep_id=3140

the audit report in their approach to interventions in all approved establishments.

The audit sought to gain better insight into LAs’ implementation of official controls in approved milk and dairy establishments in accordance with relevant EU and domestic legislation. The audit particularly referenced and focused on the key recommendations and concerns raised by the FVO audit.

Background

A previous enforcement letter dated 28th March 2014 (Ref: ENF/E/13/0122) was sent to LAs providing an update on the outcome of the Food and Veterinary (FVO) audit. The letter summarised the recommendations and additional concerns that were relevant and actions to be taken by LAs.

The FSA programme involved audit assessments at 15 LAs in England, Scotland and Wales with onsite verification visits at approved dairy establishments approved by those LAs.

The audit report makes six recommendations for LAs relating to the delivery of official controls in approved dairy establishments (in addition to a number of recommendations for the FSA). You are asked to note the recommendations and take appropriate action as necessary to ensure compliance with the requirements in the hygiene regulations and other relevant legislation. Please see Annex 1 and 2 for more details of the findings and recommendations made by the FSA.

The timescale for implementing the recommendations will vary depending on the intervention programme for these establishments in your authority.

For the previous news item related to this topic (with links to copies of the letters with the Annexs mentioned above), see:

28 March 2014 MILK - Update and outcomes from the FVO audit on controls related to safety of milk and dairy products in the UK